More significantly, the Supremes will essentially be deciding whether a corporation can have a religion and whether it has the right to free exercise of that religion. Since they've already decided that corporations are "persons" with other First Amendment rights ("freedom of speech," i.e., freedom to spend unlimited money to influence elections), it doesn't seem much of a stretch to extend to corporations the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, does it?

There are two things you learn right fast about corporations: first, they want you to get a wife so you have some coont nagging you to work harder to get promotions. And second, they want you to have kids, so you feel tied down. Workplaces frowning on contraception isn't about being pro-life. It's about being pro-slavery, and you're the slave.

Mike_LowELL:I don't know where this thing that "corporations are people" started up. If anything, corporations are more valuable to the world today, and thus deserve more rights than people. Without corporations, you would not have McDonald's. Think about that. A world without McDonald's. People would be starving without McDonald's. Thank you, McDonald's.

What I'd like to know is if corporations are people, why can other people own them?

What if your employer is a Christian Scientist, which doesn't allow a whole lot of pretty basic medical stuff. Or how about $cientologists who wouldn't allow psychiatric treatment or therapy other than their e-meter scam?

If they rule in favor of the religious whack jobs, it will completely destroy our right to make our own choices. It will put those choices in the hands of farking morons (or cheap bastards looking for an easy way out of offering coverage).

hervatski:You can't force a person to do something but you can't also allow them to NOT give something they are due. Does that make sense?

If the affordable Care act says "you give people contraceptives and they have to take it" that means Youre forcing the company to actively force itself on someone, which isn't right.

But the law says the company cannot deny care that the person requires. I think that's where its gonna come down to.

Actually I believe it just requires employer-provided insurance plans to offer contraception. Which is actually free coverage, because insurance companies would rather shell out for bc pills than the costs associated with an unplanned pregnancy. For obvious reasons.

For some reason this is controversial. Boner pills, naturally, still 100% okey doke.

Cyberluddite:More significantly, the Supremes will essentially be deciding whether a corporation can have a religion and whether it has the right to free exercise of that religion. Since they've already decided that corporations are "persons" with other First Amendment rights ("freedom of speech," i.e., freedom to spend unlimited money to influence elections), it doesn't seem much of a stretch to extend to corporations the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, does it?

That is the interesting point. I think they completely screwed the pooch on the corporations are people thing, let's see if they come back for sloppy seconds.

The whole "corporations are people" thing was a legal fiction used purely as an analogy for certain legal doctrines. The fact that the Supreme Court of the United States decided to turn this into a literal statement is beyond stupid, especially considering they all went to top-tier law schools. It is, without a doubt, the worst SCOTUS decision in the 21st century.

Cyberluddite:More significantly, the Supremes will essentially be deciding whether a corporation can have a religion and whether it has the right to free exercise of that religion. Since they've already decided that corporations are "persons" with other First Amendment rights ("freedom of speech," i.e., freedom to spend unlimited money to influence elections), it doesn't seem much of a stretch to extend to corporations the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, does it?

Exactly right. This makes absolutely no sense at all. The whole point of corporations is that they are separate from their owners. In order to pierce the corporate veil, really specific situations need to apply. How the fark is this supposed to work with religion? What percentage of a companies equity ownership (or are we including creditors also) need to agree on a religious belief for it to be attributable to the corporation they own securities of?

Why is the scope of this case limited to contraceptives? People (and therefore corporations which are people my friend) also have religious objections to all kinds of things, like chemotherapy, antibiotics, antidepressants, transfusions, etc. Why can't employers be exempted from covering those things if they object to them? Why just contraceptives?

It's not the corporation's money.It's the employee's moneyit's their deferred compensationjust because you pay the insurance company directly doesn't mean you can tell the insurance company what your employee can and cannot purchase with the plan.they're paying for it not you.

Here's the thing - Whether the corporation can have a religion (whatever that means) should be irrelevant to the holding of the court. We already have long precedent that states that a law of general applicability trumps the free exercise clause. This is why you cannot "opt out" of drug laws by declaring yourself a Rastafarian.

Hobby Lobby or whomever else can declare themselves to be Christian/Buddhist/Taoist/Whatever, unless they can show that the ACA provisions were specifically written with the intent to fark with their religious beliefs rather than to enact a general policy goal, they will still lose.

Dancin_In_Anson:Serious Post on Serious Thread: My will is to bash yor moms head in with a rock. So that's ok?

So let me get this straight. You not being forced to work somewhere that you don't want to work at is the same as you committing assault.

Not sure I'm following you there.

Yes. Again, if you've ever lived outside mom's basement, you would know economic coercion is tantamount to physical abuse. They both result in horrid bodily harm. Generally a simple physical assault is brief, so it's frankly less harmful.

Seriously. I bought your food when I could - hell, my friend used to farm literally around the corner from your building. I like supporting Michiganders and farmers. I like supporting the little guy going up against the Big Food Conglomertates who are deciding what constitutes 'organic' and making it harder and harder for honest smaller companies to use the label. I still point people toward this article

I really don't want to anymore. Buy your products, I mean. You can have your personal beliefs, that's fine. But no, you don't get to force them on your employees - at the expense of their health - anymore.

Oh, and this?

Potter, a Roman Catholic, claimed that he opposes "contraception, abortion and abortifacients" because they "almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices."

This Michigander, born and raised Roman Catholic, who is on birth control for non contraceptive reasons, would beg to differ. And would also like to question if having a child born from a rape, or being forced to carry a child to term your doctor has informed you will be dead upon delivery because you couldn't afford an abortion - and childbirth does not have a 0% fatality rate - is immoral or not.

But you can have those beliefs, if you'd like. But I'm not giving you any more profits to spend. Sincerely,

If Hobby Lobby wins this, I'm hoping that this is the death knell of having health benefits tied to your employer. The amount of coverage should be between you and your insurer and no one else. Hobby Lobby and other places can just not offer insurance and simply make up the difference in a higher wage.

/Yeah, right.//They'll give instructions on how to apply for Medicaid///Fark them and the horse they rode in on

dj_bigbird:swaniefrmreddeer: This won't end well if the SCOTUS allows the companies to deny contraception. The JW plan will not include blood transfusions, the christian scientists plan will include only prayer.

They're not "denying contraception" - the employer would simply not have to pay for it. The employees would still be free to go out into the real world and pay for it on their own.

They're refusing to pay their employees what they're legally required to because they don't like what the employees are going to do with the money (get health care they don't approve of). AT BEST it's theft.

The easy way to resolve this is to forbid companies from providing health insurance for employees. Allow everyone to find and fund their own insurance policy that covers what they want to be covered. A gay man hardly needs to pay for contraception, nor is he terribly interested in paying for mammograms. A single woman probably isn't too interested in whether her policy covers prostate exams. Just like groceries, cars, housing, clothing - let each consumer buy what he needs and wants.

While I think the owners of HL are horribly misguided and WRONG (read that more than once before proceeding) I think that forcing them provide a service that they find objectionable for whatever reason is worse. I also think that you are horribly misguided if you want these services as a condition of your employment and then go to work for a company like HL.

It seems to me that there is only one subject where people should be allowed to make their own choice.

Forcing them to what? Provide insurance? How is that different than forcing them to pay minimum wage, a safe work environment, unchained emergency exits, breaks in a 8 hour day etc. ?

And sure, in some happy unicorn world I can just choose the happyland never bad corp as my employer and not choose scumbag asshole corp. But that world doesn't exist, fark-o.

fark hobby lobby.That said if you pay for contraception you keep your wage slave employees at work and not having babies. Also it costs you less in taxes in the long run having less little punks running around doing stupid shiat.Really it's the most real Republican thing to do.

drumhellar:Has anybody noticed that Hobby Lobby isn't a corporation?It is a privately-owed company, which significantly changes the issue.The owners are still coonts, but still - it's unrelated from corporate personhood.

No, nobody has noticed that. Because it's not true. It's a corporation. It's not a publicly-traded corporation, but it's a corporation nonetheless (apparently a closely-held corporation, like the vast majority of corporations in America). From their website:

Lobby Stores, Inc., located in Oklahoma City, OK, started as an extension of Greco Products, a miniature picture frames company founded in a garage by David Green in 1970. Hobby Lobby officially began operation on August 3, 1972 with a mere 300 square feet of retail space, and has been growing ever since.

Today, Hobby Lobby is considered a leader in the arts and crafts industry. We have 578 stores across the nation that average 55,000 square feet and offer more than 67,000 crafting and home decor products. Hobby Lobby is listed as a major private corporation in Forbes and Fortunes list of America's largest private companies, and our company carries no long-term debt.

What if your religion forbids paying for insurance of any kind for employees? We can dance around this issue all we want because har-har, put an aspirin between your legs, tramp, but it's indicative of a larger, structural deficiency that undermines the entire system.

BravadoGT:The issue is whether or not the government can compel employers--any employers--to pay to fund services they find religiously objectionable and a condition of doing business in this country (i.e. "whether profit-making corporations can assert religious beliefs under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the First Amendment provision guaranteeing Americans the right to believe and worship as they choose."

What is an "employer" though? That's a huge issue here. The "employer" in the context of a corporation is the corporation, not the shareholders. On what legal basis do you attribute beliefs of shareholders to beliefs of the company? You might have Company X wholly-owned by a Catholic priest. In that case, you might want to conflate the employer's beliefs with that of the shareholder. But why should that be permitted in the case of religious beliefs, but not, say, debt? If Company X owes me money but doesn't have it, I don't get to go after the Catholic priest - we don't break the corporate veil. Why should we do so here?

Triumph:I think they're only talking about the morning after abortion pills and regular abortions, not contraception.

That's really irrelevant. Once the court rules that they can deny Plan B, it's unlikely they will turn around and deny them the right to not carry contraceptive pills on their insurance if they would modify it later.

DamnYankees:Cyberluddite: More significantly, the Supremes will essentially be deciding whether a corporation can have a religion and whether it has the right to free exercise of that religion. Since they've already decided that corporations are "persons" with other First Amendment rights ("freedom of speech," i.e., freedom to spend unlimited money to influence elections), it doesn't seem much of a stretch to extend to corporations the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, does it?

Exactly right. This makes absolutely no sense at all. The whole point of corporations is that they are separate from their owners. In order to pierce the corporate veil, really specific situations need to apply. How the fark is this supposed to work with religion? What percentage of a companies equity ownership (or are we including creditors also) need to agree on a religious belief for it to be attributable to the corporation they own securities of?

That gives the mischievous lawyer in me the idea of personally suing the owners of a company on the basis that the company sharing its owners' religious beliefs muddies its identity as a separate entity.

I have to admit, this "corporate religion" idea is so nonsensical it is just chock full of unintended consequences-goodness.

This is true. The key issue in Citizens United was not to say that corporations have the right to speak, but that corporations have the ability to speak. That, to me, is completely nonsensical and the root of the issue.

Condoms, gym memberships, vitamins, vegetables, yoga, vacations: all healthy. None are "health care" per se. There has to be a line, surely? I like "medically necessary"

Birth Control Pills aren't medically necessary either. Neither is an IUD or any other contraceptive. So why single out condoms?

Except they are for certain people, like those with PCOS -- I believe it's also standard treatment for endometriosis as well. You know, just preventing crippling pain, excessive bleeding, also decreasing risks of certain cancers... Nobody would consider that medically necessary, right?

what if your company decides that it doesn't want you to spend your paycheck on alcohol? or non kosher food? can they issue edicts to their employees to stop doing everything that they might disagree with?

cannotsuggestaname:Ok I am going to form a religion that requires contraception and medical services, then I will suggest my flock finds employment with companies like Hobby Lobby. What happens when you have conflicting religious requirements to be met? Does the corporation win or do the people?

Not only that, but they're probably the largest corporate funder of David Barton's "Wallbuilders" (a nasty NARasite group that promotes what can be best described as a pro-dominionist American Historical Revisionism that essentially posits the intent of the Founding Fathers as setting up a theocracy a la Bioshock: Infinite) and there's even evidence they're a corporate sponsor (via Assemblies linkage) of not one but two groups that have engaged in bona fide dominionist terrorism (the Army of God via a group called Summit Ministries, and the genocidal regime of Efrain Rios Montt and his present supporters in Guatemala; the latter has been recently shown to have been very strongly religiously-motivated genocide, with "Pope Francis-style" Liberation Theology Catholics and indigenous Mayans practicing traditional religion explicitly being targeted on basis of these groups not being dominionist)

Suffice it to say that anyone who is openly antidominionist or even seeming to be potentially dominionist-unfriendly tends to get fired VERY quickly and certainly does NOT make it to levels of employment where benefits packages tend to be given out.

/Hobby Lobby is on a personal list of companies I will never, ever, ever willingly or otherwise do business with (and yes, Amway and Chick-Fil-A are also on that list, for similar reasons)

Headso:Mr. Right: Employers should be prohibited from offering health insurance to their employees; individuals should be encouraged (if not mandated) to set up HSAs when they are young and maintain them and that should be the norm for health insurance. At that point, you can take your risk pools and place them where a colonoscopy would be required to find them.

Citizens should just have a certain level of coverage no HSA required then if you want additional or better coverage you can purchase it. What you advocate puts more of the burden on the middle class and poor.

Actually, the pre-ACA system penalized middle and lower income people and ACA is only going to exacerbate that situation.

When an employer pays for insurance, the employee needs to be productive enough that the employer can bill customers, one way or another, to cover all costs of employment. If you take a factory worker with a good insurance plan, his premiums are going to be a minimum of $1000/month. That's $12,000/year or about $6/hour for a FTE. That's $6/hour that the employee has absolutely no chance of ever seeing (even though he earned it) unless he gets sick and with most insurance plans he'll still have copays and deductibles for every visit, every prescription. So whether he sees it or not, he pays a minimum of $12,000/year plus his copays for every visit and prescription. If he's remarkably healthy, it costs him $12.000/year. If he's sickly, it costs him more. No matter how healthy he is, it still costs him $12.000/year minimum.

We've had an HSA for more than 15 years. Our premiums this year were just over $300/month with a $7500 deductible. A small (negligible) portion of the premium goes into the HSA but we can put as much as we want into it pre-tax. If we're remarkably healthy, our total cost is a bit over $3600/year. Whatever we've been smart enough to put into the HSA is ours, not the insurance company's. If something terrible happens and we meet the deductible, our maximum cost is $11,100 because once we meet the deductible all expenses including prescriptions are covered - no copays. Because we've had the great good fortune of being pretty darned healthy all our lives, we've managed to lay by a fair amount of money in the HSA. At the point that we are forced into Medicare, we can use that money to buy supplemental or anything else we want.

But even if we had been unhealthy or had a chronic condition we would not have spent as much as a standard policy. Consider a good friend of mine who has a couple of chronic conditions but the same health insurance policy. He meets his deductible every year. I know that my (and others') "unused" premiums cover his expenses for usually the last few months of the year. I don't have a problem with that. What I know is that he is able to afford all the health care he and his wife require without going bankrupt on copays, deductibles, percentage splits, or maximum coverages. My bottom line point is that an HSA arrangement favors the middle class as a whole because the middle class, as a whole, is relatively healthy and could, over most working careers, save a bundle of money that they can spend wantonly upon retirement or even pass on to their heirs. But you look at teachers, union workers, or any other middle class folks with good insurance coverage, they do not have the opportunity to keep any of their health insurance dollars. Those "Cadillac" premiums go straight to the insurance company and they aren't coming back. Additionally, having the large deductible that I have makes me a much more conscientious consumer. I negotiate prices with doctors and other service providers. I had a minor problem this year, went to see the doctor and he gave me a prescription. Went to the pharmacist (a friend of mine) and he allowed as how this prescription was going to be $1600! Knowing my insurance plan, he wanted to make sure I knew what it cost before he special ordered it. I got on the phone to the doctor immediately and told him that I wasn't in favor of writing a check for that amount of money for a handful of pills and asked if there was an alternative that didn't have so many zeroes behind it. He, being a specialist I'd never dealt with before, apologized profusely and rewrote the prescription for another drug that was just as effective (but wasn't brand new and probably didn't give him a kickback or at least hadn't brought in a lavish lunch for him and his entire practice) and cost the grand sum of $79. Anybody with a full-coverage plan and a small copay would not have brought up the subject.

Those great health insurance plans penalize the middle class, not benefit them.

someonelse:pedrop357: dj_bigbird: swaniefrmreddeer: This won't end well if the SCOTUS allows the companies to deny contraception. The JW plan will not include blood transfusions, the christian scientists plan will include only prayer.

They're not "denying contraception" - the employer would simply not have to pay for it. The employees would still be free to go out into the real world and pay for it on their own.

This.

My company is denying me my right to own a Lamborghini. How do I force them to stop making decisions about what I can drive?

Your argument boils down to the idea that if you cannot pay the price for treatment on the open market, you cannot have it. And your argument is not limited to contraception. It logically applies to anything the employer wants it to, including life-saving procedures.

Since no one else seems to be stating the obvious I'll just point out that no one wants to require the government to force companies to buy everyone a Lamborghini and no one wants companies to have the ability to kill their employees at will. Exactly how much government regulation vs personal freedom we get will be some where in the middle and the courts exist to determine where the line is drawn. Arguing that we can only have one extreme or the other is just stupid.

Warlordtrooper:If they allow this then you can call anything a religious belief. Don want to pay taxes? Against my religion. Don't want to serve black people just claim its against your religion. This precedent will allow anyone to ignore any law they please if they just claim a religious belief

My religion requires me to rape random strangers every once in a while. WHY ARE YOU INFRINGING ON MY RELIGION?!?

someonelse:You are oversimplifying. What about antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications? Are they elective? If I have religious objections to them, why should I be compelled to offer coverage that includes them? What about joint replacement? Elective or no? I can function by hobbling around, after all. I don't technically need a new knee to survive, but I may elect to get one.

I am not over simplifying. Insurance companies continually make coverage decisions based on medical need. No doctor prescribes antidepressants for jollies. You are willfully clouding what is a very simple dividing line: medically necessary vs. elective. Employers' desires should not be a factor in all that which is medically necessary.

This text is now purple:DamnYankees: This is true in some sense, but not in others. Firstly, there are some rights that we all agree we *could* grant to groups if we wanted to, but we don't for various reasons - for example, voting. We don't give groups the right to vote independent of their members right to vote. I'd need some convincing that we need to grant religious protections to groups independent of their members rights as well.

Citizens United has already done that. A corporation has its 1st Amendment rights, which includes its right to a free exercise of religion.

Of course but within the confines of the law. Just because the bible has the price of a slave and instructions on how to treat your slaves does not mean that you can bypass the law and keep slaves and say `religious freedom`. You can`t stone people either.

Same concept. What employment law states in this case would supersedes religion.

flucto:someonelse: Doctors prescribe contraceptives for women who don't want to become pregnant. They prescribe antidepressants for people who don't want to be depressed. They prescribe antibiotics for people who don't want to be dead from cutting their foot on the beach. You have not offered a reasonable distinction between contraception and other medical treatments that people have religious objections to.

My point is pretty clear: prescribed vs over the counte. No employer should be opine about that which is prescribed. A prescribed sterilization for medical reasons: covered. Elective? eh.

You are oversimplifying. What about antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications? Are they elective? If I have religious objections to them, why should I be compelled to offer coverage that includes them? What about joint replacement? Elective or no? I can function by hobbling around, after all. I don't technically need a new knee to survive, but I may elect to get one.

pedrop357:dj_bigbird: swaniefrmreddeer: This won't end well if the SCOTUS allows the companies to deny contraception. The JW plan will not include blood transfusions, the christian scientists plan will include only prayer.

They're not "denying contraception" - the employer would simply not have to pay for it. The employees would still be free to go out into the real world and pay for it on their own.

This.

My company is denying me my right to own a Lamborghini. How do I force them to stop making decisions about what I can drive?

Your argument boils down to the idea that if you cannot pay the price for treatment on the open market, you cannot have it. And your argument is not limited to contraception. It logically applies to anything the employer wants it to, including life-saving procedures.

flucto:someonelse: Why is the scope of this case limited to contraceptives? People (and therefore corporations which are people my friend) also have religious objections to all kinds of things, like chemotherapy, antibiotics, antidepressants, transfusions, etc. Why can't employers be exempted from covering those things if they object to them? Why just contraceptives?

Things doctors prescribe vs. elective things?

Doctors prescribe contraceptives for women who don't want to become pregnant. They prescribe antidepressants for people who don't want to be depressed. They prescribe antibiotics for people who don't want to be dead from cutting their foot on the beach. You have not offered a reasonable distinction between contraception and other medical treatments that people have religious objections to.

This text is now purple:TheWhoppah: Corporations do not have a right to exist. There are conditions that must be met before a corporation may be formed and there are conditions that must be met to maintain the corporate charter. A corporation that does not operate in the public interest may be dissolved. Just make compliance with Obamacare a condition for incorporation and this question is answered.

That's tough sledding, given a right to assembly and speech. In the simplest analysis, corporations are just a group of people -- with all of the rights possessed.

Incorrect. There are very specific rules for how a corporation is formed... you can't just assemble and say "woohoo look at us, we are now a corporation" and be done with it. The government sets the conditions under which a group may be incorporated and stay incorporated.

Mike_LowELL:I don't know where this thing that "corporations are people" started up. If anything, corporations are more valuable to the world today, and thus deserve more rights than people. Without corporations, you would not have McDonald's. Think about that. A world without McDonald's. People would be starving without McDonald's. Thank you, McDonald's.

Amen. Now, next time someone dies from food poisoning, I say freeze McDonald's assets for the same period as a person would be sentenced for negligent homicide.

DontMakeMeComeBackThere:Saying you don't want your company-provided health insurance plan to cover contraception IS NOT MAKING A HEALTH DECISION FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES!!!

What if I, as an employer, do not want my company-provided insurance plan to cover chemotherapy? Am I making a health care decision for my employees? For context, I could show you the portion of the bill that my insurance company paid for my course of chemo. But Fark cannot handle a file that large.

BravadoGT:In as much as it's the same standard as other civil law cases--yes. You file a lawsuit for anything, and a court will review it. You can allege that your neighbor is from mars and ate all your crabgrass and now owes you $3300 in gold bars, and a court will review the case for merit before kicking you to the curb. Every time.

No, not crabgrass, silly person. Your neighbor from Mars eats cars: Cadillacs, Lincolns too,Mercuries, and Subarus. And he doesn't stop, he keeps on eatin' cars. Then, when there's no more cars, he goes at night and eats up bars where the people meet.

someonelse:Why is the scope of this case limited to contraceptives? People (and therefore corporations which are people my friend) also have religious objections to all kinds of things, like chemotherapy, antibiotics, antidepressants, transfusions, etc. Why can't employers be exempted from covering those things if they object to them? Why just contraceptives?

this is what boggles my mind. especially since contraceptives are used for more than just preventing pregnancy.

BravadoGT:profplump: BravadoGT: There's no reason to deny them standing on the basis of the father incorporating the business and sharing ownership with his children.

There is, because the whole purpose of incorporation is to form a separate legal person to provide FINANCIAL isolation from the the individual(s) that own the business. You can either have that isolation or not; you don't get to pick and choose when it applies and when it does not. If he wants to operate the business as a sole proprietorship, with the limitations and liabilities that imposes, he's welcome to do that. But he can't take limited liability and shared ownership and the like from the incorporation statues and then pretend the corporation is merely his alter ego.

FTFY

it's not just financial, try and launder money for a cartel and see how much jail time you get and compare it to the jail time the banks or employees served for the same thing.

Dancin_In_Anson:Headso: Why don't they just pay everyone directly out of their own pockets and assume all the liability of running this large company directly instead of limiting their liability with an incorporation?

Because it's their choice to do so. Perhaps you don't like this and think they should be forced to operate differently.

Cubicle Jockey:.Headso: Mr. Right: Employers should be prohibited from offering health insurance to their employees; individuals should be encouraged (if not mandated) to set up HSAs when they are young and maintain them and that should be the norm for health insurance. At that point, you can take your risk pools and place them where a colonoscopy would be required to find them.

Citizens should just have a certain level of coverage no HSA required then if you want additional or better coverage you can purchase it. What you advocate puts more of the burden on the middle class and poor.

More importantly, what happens when health expenses exceed savings for unlucky individuals?

A thousand 20 year olds start an HSA, putting $3,000 into their accounts. The lucky bank administering those HSAs has $3 million in new capital.At the end of the year, one of those people gets in a car accident. Another discovers she has aggressive breast cancer. A third comes down with MRSA.

What happens to those three people with only access to $3000 in their HSAs who are facing five or six figure medical bills? In a normal risk pool situation, there would be $3 million (less admin) available for coverage.

With all the derpers in here I figured you would have gotten a reply to this but apparently the ones here only know enough to repeat talking points and can't even go off script to advocate for their ideals. The HSAs are supposed to be coupled with catastrophic insurance so theoretically you'd have your savings account for all the small shiat and your catastrophic insurance for the big stuff. In theory it doesn't sound that bad but it's just yet another thing where the poor and middle class are the ones carrying the burden taking money out of their pockets and out of the economy that requires consumer spending.

Dancin_In_Anson:Headso: yep my bad, you think the owners of hobby lobby are buying their employees insurance with their own personal money not that the hobby lobby has emotions.

They own the business, they have the say just as you do in your business.

Serious Post on Serious Thread: Paying a living wage and not working someone to death

If you don't like your pay and you don't like your hours, you are not forced by anyone to work there. Nor should you be forced to work there. Or do anything against your will for that matter.

Hobodeluxe: well what exactly is their standing for filing this suit?how does it harm them other than their feelings?why does it matter to them if their employees' insurance covers contraceptives?

Why does it matter to you?

Hobodeluxe: it's not them purchasing them. the employees are.that money they give the insurance company is actually their employee's deferred compensation.The employees are actually purchasing the plan.All the company is doing is getting them a discount.

So how about this? They have no company insurance and they choose to buy their own insurance that will cover whatever their little hearts desire. Better yet they can make the choice to go to work elsewhere that offers them something more attractive. You're hiring aren't you? $20/hour plus full benes too I'm sure.

"If you don't like your pay and you don't like your hours, you are not forced by anyone to work there. Nor should you be forced to work there. Or do anything against your will for that matter."

My will is to bash yor moms head in with a rock. So that's ok? Right?Do you even farking understand what a state if nature is? Are you that simple?

Jesus H. Christmas on a pogo stick. What candy land fantasy world do you live in? I should be able to spit nickles out of my belly button and have a new pony every day. Because because. But listen up farktard. Life ain't all shiats & giggles idealism, cold hard reality sets in after you move out of mom's basement. And if I'm gonna pay good money to be part of civilization you can fark right off if you think your dopey perfect rainbow fantasy world is gonna make me and mine eat shiat for your farktarded delusion.

DamnYankees:Debeo Summa Credo: So, do the exchanges not work? What's wrong with having people buy their own insurance?

Nothing. I have no objection to letting everyone buy on exchanges if they want to. I'm not sure what the argument against it is, honestly - there might be a good one.

The argument is that there shouldn't be an employer mandate. We have this farked up hybrid system now. Let employees buy their own insurance, which with community rating has decreased prices for risky individuals.

Much better than forcing employers to add a benefit and administer a plan and mandate what is provided in the benefit.

Cubicle Jockey:.Headso: Mr. Right: Employers should be prohibited from offering health insurance to their employees; individuals should be encouraged (if not mandated) to set up HSAs when they are young and maintain them and that should be the norm for health insurance. At that point, you can take your risk pools and place them where a colonoscopy would be required to find them.

Citizens should just have a certain level of coverage no HSA required then if you want additional or better coverage you can purchase it. What you advocate puts more of the burden on the middle class and poor.

More importantly, what happens when health expenses exceed savings for unlucky individuals?

A thousand 20 year olds start an HSA, putting $3,000 into their accounts. The lucky bank administering those HSAs has $3 million in new capital.At the end of the year, one of those people gets in a car accident. Another discovers she has aggressive breast cancer. A third comes down with MRSA.

What happens to those three people with only access to $3000 in their HSAs who are facing five or six figure medical bills? In a normal risk pool situation, there would be $3 million (less admin) available for coverage.

What happens when people dont have to join until they get Breast Cancer or MRSA ?

I'm in the camp of people that think that if an employer has a religion, they have the right to STFU and not allow it to effect the lives of the employees.If they violate the right to STFU, they have the right to be imprisoned for forcing their beliefs/bullshiat on their employees.

Debeo Summa Credo:Exactly. If the exchanges are so great, let people buy their own insurance. With community rating it wouldn't be much, if any, more expensive than group plans. And the consumer would in many cases get more choice than under group cafeteria plans.

This is a point where you and I (about as strong an ACA advocate as you'll find, even if I'd rather we went ahead and got first-world health care) agree. The exchanges would, one should hope anyway, have better competition than they do now if virtually everyone was buying from them.

Headso:Mr. Right: Employers should be prohibited from offering health insurance to their employees; individuals should be encouraged (if not mandated) to set up HSAs when they are young and maintain them and that should be the norm for health insurance. At that point, you can take your risk pools and place them where a colonoscopy would be required to find them.

Citizens should just have a certain level of coverage no HSA required then if you want additional or better coverage you can purchase it. What you advocate puts more of the burden on the middle class and poor.

More importantly, what happens when health expenses exceed savings for unlucky individuals?

A thousand 20 year olds start an HSA, putting $3,000 into their accounts. The lucky bank administering those HSAs has $3 million in new capital.At the end of the year, one of those people gets in a car accident. Another discovers she has aggressive breast cancer. A third comes down with MRSA.

What happens to those three people with only access to $3000 in their HSAs who are facing five or six figure medical bills? In a normal risk pool situation, there would be $3 million (less admin) available for coverage.

Shryke:Headso: If the subsidies were being paid for by the poor and middle class instead of the wealthy none of the people who tell you what to think would have a problem with the ACA, "all this mess" is an ad campaign to move an agenda.

Let me get this straight: I would not have a problem with the ACA if the end users were actually paying for the services they used, based on what they used.

Yes, I have no problem with that. This is, of course, the opposite of what the ACA does.

That said, the "mess" I am referring to predates the ACA by several decades.

That's the system we had before the ACA. You can see how well it's worked out.

Insurance is not on a "pay per use" system. It's a constant input so we can amortize costs across people. If I get cancer, there's no way I could pay for how much I'd use in the system. But now, I pay more into the system than I use on the off chance that I do get cancer or other serious illnesses.

Do you think that your employer should be able to a-la-carte choose which healthcare you're allowed to use? Because that's what it seems like you're advocating, and is the exact opposite of empowering the person. It makes the employee much more of a slave, and gives the corporation master status. Can it with the "just find a different job" shiat, too. If someone has to choose between not eating tomorrow and working for a bad company, you know which one they'll choose. Believe it or not, not everyone has thousands of dollars in the bank and the ability to pick and choose employers at their whim. Yet, they're still people and do not deserve to be taken advantage of.

Headso:yes I know, the ACA gives poor people coverage with the medicare expansion and helps the lower middle and middle class with subsidies, I know that is a problem for conservatives.

Anything that can't be paid for is a problem for everyone. The best part about this, at least from my side of the coin, is the ass-raping the young are going to get is near-instant, unlike the Great Society initiatives that slowly but surely stole their money.

PunGent:Mr. Right: The easy way to resolve this is to forbid companies from providing health insurance for employees. Allow everyone to find and fund their own insurance policy that covers what they want to be covered. A gay man hardly needs to pay for contraception, nor is he terribly interested in paying for mammograms. A single woman probably isn't too interested in whether her policy covers prostate exams. Just like groceries, cars, housing, clothing - let each consumer buy what he needs and wants.

Can't happen under current law. This is one of my biggest beefs against Obamacare (and Romneycare, since I live in Mass.)

The young and healthy can't buy cheap high-deductible catastrophic care policies. Which is exactly the kind of insurance that makes sense for them. Well, they CAN buy those policies...they just don't count as coverage. So they still get fined.

you couldn't buy those scam insurances you talk about even before Romneycare, MA has tough regs on all insurance companies that's why many of the big auto insurance companies are not in MA.

PunGent:The young and healthy can't buy cheap high-deductible catastrophic care policies. Which is exactly the kind of insurance that makes sense for them. Well, they CAN buy those policies...they just don't count as coverage. So they still get fined.

Shryke:Headso: If the subsidies were being paid for by the poor and middle class instead of the wealthy none of the people who tell you what to think would have a problem with the ACA, "all this mess" is an ad campaign to move an agenda.

Let me get this straight: I would not have a problem with the ACA if the end users were actually paying for the services they used, based on what they used.

Yes, I have no problem with that. This is, of course, the opposite of what the ACA does.

yes I know, the ACA gives poor people coverage with the medicare expansion and helps the lower middle and middle class with subsidies, I know that is a problem for conservatives.

If they allow this then you can call anything a religious belief. Don want to pay taxes? Against my religion. Don't want to serve black people just claim its against your religion. This precedent will allow anyone to ignore any law they please if they just claim a religious belief

Dancin_In_Anson:stewbert: And you seem to be arguing that employer-provided healthcare is a bad idea

How in God's name did you make that conclusion? It couldn't have been from Dancin_In_Anson: While I think the owners of HL are horribly misguided and WRONG so it had to come from somewhere else. Please elaborate.

Headso: I don't think the hobby lobby corp finds anything "objectionable" because being offended is a human emotion.

You missed one key word. Go back and see if you can find it.

Serious Post on Serious Thread: Show your work

Wages and breaks are benefits and or compensation. Chained doors and safe working environments are a matter of public safety. Two entirely different animals.

Paying a living wage and not working someone to death aren't purvue of social policy. But letting a person choose to work for higher wages without the dastardly oppression of not allowing asbestos removers to work without masks or seamstresses to work without fire exits is?

Sweaty Dynamite:Employer: Well here is our food benefit plan, we will cover half of your grocery bills from store X. We chose this store as our food provider for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is because they don't sell mustard. I farking hate mustard, and I think no one should be subjected to it.

Employee: But you are denying my access to mustard you condiment Nazi.

Employer: No, you are free to buy your own mustard wherever you like. I'm just not going to have money that I am spending for your food needs going for any god damned mustard. In fact, save the $10/month you are spending on birth control and you can have a smorgasbord of mustard for all I care. Anybody with that much mustard on their breath won't be getting laid anyway.

Close ...

Government: Employers must provide this (fictional) food service.

Employer: Ok ... but my invisible friend says mustard is bad so I will deny that part of the coverage even though the rules are that I provide coverage.

Hopefully what the SCOTUS says: Fark you ... if your invisible friend tells you not to eat mustard then you can choose not to for yourself. You don't get to choose for anyone else. Comply with the same rules as everyone else. Your belief in invisible friends does make you special but not in a good way.

edmo:DontMakeMeComeBackThere: Look, I don't think contraception/abortion coverage in a health plan makes the owners of the company "responsible" in the eyes of God in any way, shape or form - so they all need to farking take a breath and stop this nonsense...

BUT...

Saying you don't want your company-provided health insurance plan to cover contraception IS NOT MAKING A HEALTH DECISION FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES!!!

That's like saying "I'm not paying my employees a million dollars a year - so I'm making decisions on where they can live, and what kind of car they can drive."

It is most certainly taking health decisions away from the people who should be making them. Arguing about whether you'll pay is mere quibbling.

Raising the religious rights of a company over an individual will never get past any SCOTUS - they'll shoot them down.

My wife was on birth control pills to help regulate her hormones. Without them her moods were really messed up. An employer restricting her would indeed have a very real impact on her mental health.

Mr. Right:The easy way to resolve this is to forbid companies from providing health insurance for employees. Allow everyone to find and fund their own insurance policy that covers what they want to be covered. A gay man hardly needs to pay for contraception, nor is he terribly interested in paying for mammograms. A single woman probably isn't too interested in whether her policy covers prostate exams. Just like groceries, cars, housing, clothing - let each consumer buy what he needs and wants.

The easy way to resolve it is for hobby lobby to follow the law. The rest of your post where you don't understand risk pools has nothing to do with the case.

DamnYankees:Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich: DamnYankees: No, in light of the VRA decision, one of the all time worst opinions in court history, the court seems to have completely gone of the deep end and said "fark it, we're just gonna make shiat up entirely", but that's how its supposed to work at least.

No argument with you there. The VRA decision is going to down in history on par with other decisions like Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson as a "what the hell were they thinking?"

I think its worse in purely legal terms than Plessy. Plessy was a terrible decision in that the legal logic used to uphold separate but equal actually did make abstract sense, it just didn't match the empirical reality that separate wasn't actually equal. The VRA decision is just nonsense, without any constitutional basis for it.

I find myself in the minority in VRA, as I agree with both sides and come to a different conclusion than both sides (assuming I am well-informed, which I may not be, please enlighten me if the following is excessively silly).

Conservative side: these rules are picking on certain states and regions, that's unfair. Liberal side: you were doing unfair things in your elections, these corrections fixed those problems. My solution: why not apply these limitations everywhere? Isn't it mostly the right to screw with an election at the last minute? That is asking the people in power to twiddle with things to their own benefit. Elections don't need last minute twiddling, lock them down well in advance everywhere.

The Virginia gubernatorial election is an excellent example of why we should do this--Cuccinelli only won the republican nomination because his boosters changed the primary scheme at the last second to a caucus scheme. We all suffered for that, which allowed the dems to put up a crap candidate too.

BravadoGT:In as much as it's the same standard as other civil law cases--yes. You file a lawsuit for anything, and a court will review it. You can allege that your neighbor is from mars and ate all your crabgrass and now owes you $3300 in gold bars, and a court will review the case for merit before kicking you to the curb. Every time. Why should this be different? It doesn't mean specious will get a pass and shape policy. Moreover--since the government publicly and voluntarily accepted a high burden here--they certainly seemed willing to take on the responsibility, Isn't the best course of action to let their power to be checked?

I agree with this in general, but I'm unclear on what the nature claim here is. We seem to be vacillating between 2 different claims, and I haven't been sure what it is you're thinking about:

1) A claim on behalf of the corporation, claiming the the corporation itself has some religious beliefs which are being violated.

2) A claim on behalf of a shareholder of a corporation, claiming that by imposing certain laws on the corporation, the religious rights of the shareholder are being violated.

Which is it? Because these are 2 distinct claims that need to be responded to differently.

Employer: Well here is our food benefit plan, we will cover half of your grocery bills from store X. We chose this store as our food provider for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is because they don't sell mustard. I farking hate mustard, and I think no one should be subjected to it.

Employee: But you are denying my access to mustard you condiment Nazi.

Employer: No, you are free to buy your own mustard wherever you like. I'm just not going to have money that I am spending for your food needs going for any god damned mustard. In fact, save the $10/month you are spending on birth control and you can have a smorgasbord of mustard for all I care. Anybody with that much mustard on their breath won't be getting laid anyway.

Transubstantive:The whole "corporations are people" thing was a legal fiction used purely as an analogy for certain legal doctrines. The fact that the Supreme Court of the United States decided to turn this into a literal statement is beyond stupid, especially considering they all went to top-tier law schools. It is, without a doubt, the worst SCOTUS decision in the 21st century.

Don't get ahead of yourself. We have another 87 years to try to top it.

It is a privately-owed company, which significantly changes the issue.

The owners are still coonts, but still - it's unrelated from corporate personhood.

Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. is very much a corporation. It might be closely held and not publicly traded, but it has all the protections and obligations that go with the corporate form, and so is a legal entity distinct from his owners, officers, and employees. Unless they want to pierce the corporate veil and make themselves personally liable for the corporation's debts and obligations.

While I think the owners of HL are horribly misguided and WRONG (read that more than once before proceeding) I think that forcing them provide a service that they find objectionable for whatever reason is worse. I also think that you are horribly misguided if you want these services as a condition of your employment and then go to work for a company like HL.

It seems to me that there is only one subject where people should be allowed to make their own choice.

And you seem to be arguing that employer-provided healthcare is a bad idea. I agree.

It's easy for someone who is comfortable to claim that you just don't have to work somewhere. But, it isn't always an easy decision. So, we end up with people working for assholes like HL, because kids come before principles. Every damn time.

It isn't the upper middle class that this type of crap affects, it is those without alternatives.

Torgo_of_Manos:Cyberluddite: More significantly, the Supremes will essentially be deciding whether a corporation can have a religion and whether it has the right to free exercise of that religion. Since they've already decided that corporations are "persons" with other First Amendment rights ("freedom of speech," i.e., freedom to spend unlimited money to influence elections), it doesn't seem much of a stretch to extend to corporations the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, does it?

I'm split. On the one hand, I can understand the stance of not forcing a company to pay for something which violates its belief system HOWEVER, its forcing its belief system on its employees which is not right either. The argument can be made that if someone is working there by choice and could find work elsewhere...etc.

Its the forcing the company's religious beliefs (which it shouldn't have in the first place) on their workers which is incorrect. At the end of the day, I doubt they really care all that much about their religion but trying to find a loophole to not have to pay the benefits and save money to pad their profit margin.

I'm astounded when I watch CSPAN how many times religion is used as a platform. What happened to separation of church and state?

/I'm equally offended by all religions but uphold the ability for others to practice as they choose.//Just not on my lawn. Or in my uterus.

hervatski:You can't force a person to do something but you can't also allow them to NOT give something they are due. Does that make sense?

If the affordable Care act says "you give people contraceptives and they have to take it" that means Youre forcing the company to actively force itself on someone, which isn't right.

But the law says the company cannot deny care that the person requires. I think that's where its gonna come down to.

here's my argument.

that money is not the corporation's money. it's the employee's money. it's their deferred compensation. the company you work for should not be allowed to tell you what you can or cannot buy with your own money.

Barry Lyndon's Annuity Cheque:The end result of this loophole is that every multinational billion-dollar corporation will "find religion" that conveniently means they don't have to provide health insurance for any of their employees.

No Company has to provide health insurance for their employees; never have. They do it because they get a tax break and its part of competitive compensation packages.

While I think the owners of HL are horribly misguided and WRONG (read that more than once before proceeding) I think that forcing them provide a service that they find objectionable for whatever reason is worse. I also think that you are horribly misguided if you want these services as a condition of your employment and then go to work for a company like HL.

It seems to me that there is only one subject where people should be allowed to make their own choice.

The end result of this loophole is that every multinational billion-dollar corporation will "find religion" that conveniently means they don't have to provide health insurance for any of their employees. In any case, we as a society have deemed some things more important than the exercise of free religion, notably in things like the Civil Rights Act. Even if your religion says that black people wear the stain of Cain (or Abel, I have no idea) you still have to let them in the door if you operate a public establishment.

Even if your religion says that Muslims are heretical terrorists, you still can't fire one because they're Muslim.

While I think the owners of HL are horribly misguided and WRONG (read that more than once before proceeding) I think that forcing them provide a service that they find objectionable for whatever reason is worse. I also think that you are horribly misguided if you want these services as a condition of your employment and then go to work for a company like HL.

It seems to me that there is only one subject where people should be allowed to make their own choice.

dj_bigbird:swaniefrmreddeer: This won't end well if the SCOTUS allows the companies to deny contraception. The JW plan will not include blood transfusions, the christian scientists plan will include only prayer.

They're not "denying contraception" - the employer would simply not have to pay for it. The employees would still be free to go out into the real world and pay for it on their own.

They're not telling their employees that they can't have a blood transfusion to save their life, the JW employer just won't pay for it.

Transubstantive:The whole "corporations are people" thing was a legal fiction used purely as an analogy for certain legal doctrines. The fact that the Supreme Court of the United States decided to turn this into a literal statement is beyond stupid, especially considering they all went to top-tier law schools. It is, without a doubt, the worst SCOTUS decision in the 21st century.

Yeah, I still can't quite get my head around the fact they did that. It makes me wonder if it is the beginning of the slippery slope to a society like Cloud Atlas' Nea So Copros.

This is also one reason why we need a single-payer. Health insurance should not be tied to employment.

Transubstantive:The whole "corporations are people" thing was a legal fiction used purely as an analogy for certain legal doctrines. The fact that the Supreme Court of the United States decided to turn this into a literal statement is beyond stupid, especially considering they all went to top-tier law schools. It is, without a doubt, the worst SCOTUS decision in the 21st century.

I think there is something to be said for saying that laws that harm a business that is inextricably linked to religion are problematic, like mandating a kosher bakery be open on Saturdays, or requiring a Mormon restaurant to serve alcohol or caffeine, but for a regular business that won't have its business operations affected by regulations, I don't think they have any standing, since the corporation is not the person, and the corporation has no inherent religion if it is a secular business.

I just happened to check the "About Us" page on Hobby Lobby's corporate website to see what their corporate structure is like, and I didn't find much about that, but I did learn the following about the company:

At Hobby Lobby, we value our customers and employees and are committed to:

- Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles. - Offering our customers exceptional selection and value in the crafts and home decor market. - Serving our employees and their families by establishing a work environment and company policies that build character, strengthen individuals and nurture families. - Providing a return on the owner's investment, sharing the Lord's blessings with our employees, and investing in our community.

We believe that it is by God's grace and provision that Hobby Lobby has endured. He has been faithful in the past, and we trust Him for our future.

Donnchadha:At this point, we've established that corporations are people and people have the right to free expression of religion, therefore transitive property.

So, could this easily be defeated by requesting evidence that the corporation, as a person-entity is actually active (or a registered member) in said religion? At most, one could only provide evidence that the people who make up the corporation are members, but not the corporation itself -- which is the whole premise behind corporate personhood.

This whole notion that the Supreme Court will decide this case with an attention played to the whole "corporations are people so corporations have religion now" is ridiculous. SCOTUS doesn't have to play this little "what if?" game, and they're not going to. It's sufficient that the human owners of the corporation assert that they hold these religious beliefs. The organizational structure of the entity is irrelevant. The Supreme Court isn't going waste ink on pondering why if, let's say three individuals who share the same religious beliefs (family members, in the SCOTUS case) and open a business together---for some reason, would lose their religious voice because they chose to file articles of incorporation for the venture.

The issue is whether or not the government can compel employers--any employers--to pay to fund services they find religiously objectionable and a condition of doing business in this country (i.e. "whether profit-making corporations can assert religious beliefs under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the First Amendment provision guaranteeing Americans the right to believe and worship as they choose."

And that's all they'll decide. They are the ultimate government employees--not inclined to stick their necks out a inch more than they have to or do more work than they are asked.

Cyberluddite:itcamefromschenectady: Religious business owners should just not offer health insurance at all and make their employees buy it on the exchanges. Won't that make everybody happy?

Nobody's forcing them to offer health insurance and therefore their rights are not being violated.

If they have more than a certain number of employees (50, is it?), then yes, they are required to offer health insurance to their full-time employees under the Affordable Care Act.

If they are ruled against it, they'll probably price their employee contribution to the highest level possible, thereby making it too expensive for most part time or low-level employees to afford. You know, just to be dicks.

gilgigamesh:Actually I believe it just requires employer-provided insurance plans to offer contraception. Which is actually free coverage, because insurance companies would rather shell out for bc pills than the costs associated with an unplanned pregnancy. For obvious reasons.

Exactly. Companies can exclude birth control, if they're prepared to pay more. And then the employee can go out and get a policy rider for BC, and get a rebate for doing so.

vygramul:hervatski: You can't force a person to do something but you can't also allow them to NOT give something they are due. Does that make sense?

If the affordable Care act says "you give people contraceptives and they have to take it" that means Youre forcing the company to actively force itself on someone, which isn't right.

But the law says the company cannot deny care that the person requires. I think that's where its gonna come down to.

No one is forcing the employee to use contraceptives, so we're not forcing stuff onto them anymore than we force roads onto tax-payers who walk everywhere.

That's what I'm saying. How can they say "you can't force us to give something to someone who asks for something Thats within their right to take." If the law was forcing them to force contraceptives on people and they say their religion is against that that's one thing. But its saying that you can't deny someone a right.

I would endorse your legal claims if you were making over 250,000 dollars a year, but alas, the purpose of the courts are to ensure that people of my stature and success can hold onto their money. You may consider this unfair, but this is the only way to protect the American dream, to make sure anyone can succeed in this country, and when they get to the top, no number of disastrous decisions can take that away from them.

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich:DamnYankees: This is true. The key issue in Citizens United was not to say that corporations have the right to speak, but that corporations have the ability to speak. That, to me, is completely nonsensical and the root of the issue.

I disagree. I think the key issue was that the right of a company to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence an election outweighs the public good of having public elections that aren't influenced by obscene contributions of soft money. I think any rational person looking at it would see that the public good of having less money in politics outweighs the freedom of speech.

Legally speaking, that's not what the case turned on though. If it was simply a question of weighing public policy choices, that choice would have been left for the legislature. The only way for the court to overturn that choice is to assert some right on the part of the aggrieved party which is being violated.

No, in light of the VRA decision, one of the all time worst opinions in court history, the court seems to have completely gone of the deep end and said "fark it, we're just gonna make shiat up entirely", but that's how its supposed to work at least.

Cyberluddite:More significantly, the Supremes will essentially be deciding whether a corporation can have a religion and whether it has the right to free exercise of that religion. Since they've already decided that corporations are "persons" with other First Amendment rights ("freedom of speech," i.e., freedom to spend unlimited money to influence elections), it doesn't seem much of a stretch to extend to corporations the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, does it?

At this point, we've established that corporations are people and people have the right to free expression of religion, therefore transitive property.

So, could this easily be defeated by requesting evidence that the corporation, as a person-entity is actually active (or a registered member) in said religion? At most, one could only provide evidence that the people who make up the corporation are members, but not the corporation itself -- which is the whole premise behind corporate personhood.

I don't know where this thing that "corporations are people" started up. If anything, corporations are more valuable to the world today, and thus deserve more rights than people. Without corporations, you would not have McDonald's. Think about that. A world without McDonald's. People would be starving without McDonald's. Thank you, McDonald's.